Federalized Land Use Control: Bush's HUD Legislative Guidebook

Defenders of Property Rights ^ | November 2001 | Defenders of Property Rights

[DrLiberty]

Federalized Land Use Control: The Bush Administration’s HUD/APA Legislative Guidebook

On November 22, 2001, HUD is set to approve a "Legislative Guidebook," a comprehensive blueprint of model statutes and planning guidelines to govern land use planning at the state and local levels, at the expense of local control and constitutionally protected property rights. This radical "Smart Growth" project is the brainchild of Clinton activists, who found fertile soil for their anti-growth agenda at HUD. Jointly drafted by HUD and the American Planning Association, the Guidebook runs counter to the free-market, pro-business and pro-property rights principles of the Bush administration.

The Guidebook is "Anti-Growth"

The Guidebook encourages the adoption of regulations that will discourage growth and competition and drive up costs of development. The Guidebook runs counter to the very foundations of our free-market, consumer-oriented society and will strangle small business development.

The Guidebook Strikes at the Heart of Private Property Rights

Many provisions in the Guidebook will statutorily take private property rights without just compensation. For example, Chapter 8 of the Legislative Guidebook authorizes the taking of commercial signs without just compensation by mandating an inadequate amortization procedure for compensating property owners and by imposing moratoriums on the issuance of permits to erect commercial signs.

Minorities and the Financially Disadvantaged Will Suffer the Most

The Guidebook’s "smart growth" initiatives will drive up housing costs and decrease affordable housing. For example, Portland, Oregon, a model for the "smart growth" initiative, has gone from being one of the nation’s most affordable cities to one of least affordable. The Guidebook’s proposals will not only ensure that there is no affordable housing, but no housing at all. This is because its proposals also restrict where people can live.

The Guidebook Is Driven By Special Interests, Not the Public as a Whole

The Guidebook was developed without the consultation of landowners, the agricultural community, minority and small businesses as well as manufacturers and other commercial industries. Indeed, many of these groups are now asking HUD to disapprove the Legislative Guidebook under its contract with the APA based on its faulty analysis and methodology, or for HUD to require a dissent be inserted into the document itself.

See also the article on WorldNetdaily.com 11/19/01 http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=25381

[DrLiberty]

It's amazing that AL GORE took a lot of heat for all this "smart growth" nonsense (that is nothing more than FEDERAL LAND GRABS that will regulate the common citizen, farmer, businessman and developer out of existence, relegating all "property holders" to the level of serfdom.) YET ALL THIS IS HAPPENING UNDER BUSH EXACTLY IN THE SAME MANNER AS IF GORE HAD WON!!!!

FReepers, please contact and besiege HUD and your Congress critters before November 22 THURSDAY. IF WE LOSE HERE, WE WILL HAVE TO FIGHT IT AT THE LOCAL LEVEL THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY!!!

DEFENDERS OF PROPERTY RIGHTS was also the organization that defended John Thoburn "Shrubman" whose golf course was under attack by his county's planning commission (who built a competitor course) and who was held in jail for 90 days w/o a trial on contempt